Why Are We Our Own Worst Enemies Sometimes?

This morning I got a text from our friend K – saying how she couldn’t believe our baby was due in seven weeks and how excited she and her partner A were. What an awesome way to start the day (and week 33). Our baby is kicking and moving and wriggling up a storm in there. We are so looking forward to meeting this precious baby at last. I am tearing up at the thought of it.

I spent the day working on a uni assignment and reading some random blogs in between. I somehow stumbled onto this blog and have cried through this woman’s story. It is just terrifying – I can’t imagine what it must be like. And reading through her blog – it seems to be a reoccurring theme – bio parents keeping children from their non bio parents when the relationship ends. That is bad enough – add to the mix that your ex partner goes from lesbian co-parent to full “jesus loves me and wants me to keep our child away from you” and that is a whole other story. I just admire this woman who loves her child so much she will continue fighting for her against all odds.

As lesbians we have to work harder to create our families. We actively have to make decisions regarding donors, which one of us will be the birth/bio parent, we consider fertility treatment options and for most of us that means talking and talking and talking long before any baby is ever conceived. We fight to ensure that no-one undermines our families and that everyone understands that biology is not what makes a parent. So how do we then get to the place where we use biology as a weapon against ourselves? How do we break up our families and hurt our children that were so wanted and loved from the beginning?

I’d like to think that if L and I ever broke up, we’d be good ex-partners. We’d be polite and respectful and ensure our child knew how much each of us loved them, and therefore each other. That we’d find a way back from whatever it was that made us end the relationship until we could love each other again – even if it was as co-parents instead of partners. I know that neither one of us would turn to religion and use it against the other. But I guess others thought that too, and were wrong.

But seeing as L and I are never going to break up, I shall instead be thankful that I have the most amazing woman in my life and in a very short time, she and I are going to have the most amazing child in our arms. Ours.